December 2025 and January 2026 round-up

December and January involved a lot of travel. Some travel was fun, such as a surprise mother-daughter trip.

Other was bitter-sweet, such as trips to spend time with a close relative whose health was rapidly deteriorating (and sadly passed away at the end of January).

Quite the contrast (or, as a colleague put it: the paradoxes of living in action)!

These two months also included another round of bad news at Sussex, supporting the kiddo after his shoulder surgery, and a very unpleasant situation with my blog.

On a more mundane note, Child One gifted me an origami calendar, and I have been enjoying starting the day turning paper squares into all sorts of interesting shapes.

Research

I continued to develop a grant application about AI in policing, which included reaching out to a law enforcement agency for a possible partnership. My colleague Federico Iannaci (who is leading that project) and I did a presentation about that work at the Sussex AI day.

I also did a talk at the “Bridging AI research and policy: staying human centred”. The talk was organised by DSIT, for public sector workers, to “explore how human judgment and automation can work together to boost efficiency and trust in government services”. My talk focused on the end users, and discussed:

• The costs and benefits of using AI from a user perspective
• The importance task-technology fit
• The effect of trust or distrust in some elements of the wider ecosystem (e.g., the technology itself, the tech companies, the specific department, government…) on technology use

On a side note, the invitation for this event came from attending a networking event in November, which reminds me of the value of these events and the importance of putting oneself out there. 

Other activities on the research front included brainstorming with colleagues about the AI and gender project; and holding exploratory meetings with other colleagues on management perspectives on criminal activities, and AI in medical practice.

Writing

I worked on the scripts for an experiment, two journal papers due in February, a conference paper, and a white paper.

The white paper on Generative AI in education has been published. And I received a rejection on a paper and on a research grant.

Teaching

I completed the marking for the module that I taught last semester, and had meetings with several academic advisees about how the new academic year was going.

Then, I got ready for the semester by setting up the virtual learning environment, writing the assessment handbook and briefs, and preparing the teaching materials and class activities. I also had a meeting and did some work on a module that I teach in order to support placements in our MBA programme/

Elsewhere, I provided feedback on a student’s thesis chapter; reviewed and gave feedback on a PhD research proposal; and completed work on an online resource for PhD students on using generative AI in their projects.

Service

In my SeNSS role, I reviewed applications for funding for professional development activities, completed an analysis of student engagement. 

I also attended a planning day with the core team. Because the event was starting early, some of us travelled the day before and had dinner together to review some matters. In the morning, I went for a walk on the beach, before the meeting started, which was such a treat! 

In my ethics role, I ran a session with module leaders, recruited a new member for the ethics review committee, and reviewed various applications. Most importantly, at the ethics committee meeting, we agreed to move to reviewing applications on a rolling basis throughout the year (as opposed to 11 fixed points). In my view, this is a really important step, to improve responsiveness and better support staff and student research projects.

Finally, a reviewed two papers for journals.

What did the last couple of months have in store for you?